Monday, June 30, 2008

Farangs are constantly being bamboozeled in the Land of Smiles by their own kkind as much as the natives, but Thai men are just as susceptible to a smiling face as westerners as demonstrated when a middle-aged Thai man was relieved of his possessions in the Phillipines by a 19 year-old woman he met online.

Pattaya probably leads the statistics for most suicides by tourists. Every week the Pattaya newspapers report about a fatal plunge from a condo balcony. No one ever calls for the landlords to place a sticker on the railing saying, "Falls from this height could be dangerous." because suicides are usually considered to be losers, however this theory was disproved by a super-model's death leap from a Manhattan apartment building.

Ruslana Korshunova was discovered as a 16 year-old. Vogue called her the next big thing. Her face adorned the covers of fabulous fashion magazines. The twenty year-old earned big money. Fame and fortune aren't everything. She took her life after watching GHOST with her ex-boyfriend. He left her at 5am. No one spoke to her again.

Family and friends are astounded by her death.

"She was on top of the world."

New York dailies the Post and News tried to paint her as desperate for love, but her emails are normal epistles for a girl wanting what all girls want.

"Love is the sun, desire - only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life."

This doesn't sound like someone who wants to kill herself and I question this suicide as i do all those in Pattaya, because most suicides leave a note.

My Pattaya girlfriend, Mem, tried to kill herself when I ordered her to leave after she pawned the refrigerator to give money to her 'brother'. She slashed her arms with broken glass. It was an act. Her wrists bore the scars of previous dramas. I let her stay because I had a soft heart. She wrote no suicide note adn neither did Ruslana.

GW Bush was elected president over Johy Kerry, because more American voters decided that Laura Bush made a better first lady than Mrs. Kerry, whose Heinz fortune came from outliving her husband.

2008 pits Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain in the First Lady election.

Black against white. Chicago versus Arizona. New school/ Old School.

The GOP are gearing up their smear machine to muddy the younger woman's image in order to negativized the Democrat candidate in the eyes of mainstream America.

National Review dubbed Michelle as Mrs. Grievance and Fox news has once more tried on the old Al-Qeada connection by calling a fist punch the husband and wife shared at the announcement of Obama's winning the nomination 'a terrorist bump' and assailed her saying about her husband's winning, "For the first time in my adult life I'm proud to be an American."

You're not proud about GW Bush, the War on Terror, Monica Lewinsky, SUV, obesity, steroids, the US Basketball teams losing to the rest of the world?

You Black Panther bitch.

This while some African Americans question her 'blackness' as the elitist daughter of a garbage collector.

Mikie at Maggie's Bar on Pattaya's Soi Chaiyapoon is always raving about the girls he meets over the internet.

"She was a college student. 21. Beautiful. Only wanted me for sex nothing else."

The beer-bellied 50 year-old had never had a loser, although this winning streak could have to do with Mikie's myopia. His glasses are thick as the bottom of a coke bottle. With his sweep-over he looks a little like Roy Obison and we all know how much thai girls love the singer of PRETTY WOMAN.

The Australian has yet to let introduce a internet Juliette to one of his mates, but we suspect their internet descriptions might not add up to physical realities, not that Mikie would mind if they were ugly, fat, or old as his mother. Sometimes his near-sightedness has to be a blessing, especially if your internet date ends up being unlike her description as happened to a hapless computer Romeo in Bangkok earlier this month.

This Thai man had made a date with a Thai university student with light skin, big breasts and needing help to further her studies. The door bell rings at the appointed time and Poo-chai ngao rang the bell of this poor co-ed condo and the the door opened to reveal a middle-aged lady weighing about 100 kilos. He balked at having to perform sex and tried to leave, only Ms. Chang Noi blocked his escape, threatening to call the Mafia unless he had sex with her. The disappointed man pretended to pay, then bolted for the door. The two wrestled in the hallway, until the behemoth snatched her victim's cellphone and attempted to blackmail him with a call to his wife if he didn't give her 500 baht and made another date to see her again.

The man paid the ransom but returned to the condo with the police, who arrested the jilted female for fraud and blackmail. Her fine of 10000 baht was knocked down to 8000 thanks to a heart-felt confession.

We told Mikie about this incident and he said, "All my girls are very pretty. Even prettier with my glasses off and the uglier they are the happier they are with me. I'm their internet Romeo."

"How do you describe yourself?"

"20, fit, and wealthy. Just how I see myself in the mirror after about 10 beers."

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Colonel Rockford called from Iowa. He was planning on visiting Palm Beach, having heard about my semi-palatial house-sitting gig. I said, "Any time."

"You remember Skip?" Rockford asked like I had been diagnosed for Alzheimer's.

"Yeah, he's been living in Laos."

"He's back now. Got broken-hearted over some Thai girl. She left him for a guy in Germany."

I laughed mercilessly and Rockford was quick with reproach. "What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing, only that Thai girls are such experts at breaking men's heart it's a wonder they don't come with a warning tattooed on their bodies."

"That;s never happened to you." Rockford has the greatest respect for my acumen with with gentler sex.

"Never." I didn't want to disappoint Rockford's expectations, after all we do business together, but I did tell him about a love-crazed Frenchman hunting for his girlfriend in Pattay. "She had obviously left with another guy. No forwarding address. He runs into a girl who looks a little like her ex- and persuades her to take him to her place to play at being his girlfriend. Unfortunately her boyfriend was there and told the Frenchman to get lost. He refused and searched the room, thinking his ex- might be hiding in the closet, then he sliced his wrists. The doctors stitched him up and the police took him to the French Embassy."

"Poor crazy froggie." Rockford holds a deep-rooted compassion for the broken-hearted, having suffered after Nona walked out on him 25 years ago. "I know how he feels."

I'm glad I've never felt that way." I had less problems telling a lie than the truth when it comes to affairs of the heat. "I love and I leave. To me they're all the same."

"Yes, the wanderer," Rockford crooned from his porch in Iowa. "I get around."

Adn that was funny coming from a 60 year-old Colonel living in the cornfields, but listening to corn grow has to be better than paddling a canoe in Cedar Rapids.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

The 1950s were a time for American kids to love guns. Our movie heroes slaughtered America’s enemies on the silver screen and TV cops danced provocative gun ballets on prime time. Armed with air rifles my friends and I re-enacted World War II in the woods behind my house. Imaginary bullets tore holes through the make-believe Nazis. Hitler was the last enemy to die, however none of us suffered a scratch during these battles and I wondered what it would be like to fire a real gun. There was only one way to find out.

At the end of the summer of 1959 my father drove our family south for a week’s vacation on Cape Cod. We stopped at my grandmother’s house in Westbrook for lunch. My brothers and sisters concentrated on their Italian sandwiches and my parents conversed with Edith about adult matters. They didn’t hear me excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Leaving the kitchen I climbed the stairs to the bedroom over the garage and pushed through a wall of military uniforms in the closet. A Winchester repeating rifle lay horizontal on a rack.

The gun was heavy in my hand. I pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked on an empty chamber. I went to the window and aimed the rifle at the cars on Main Street. Cadillacs offered a big target and I imagined that Adolf Hitler was behind the wheel of one. Before I could pull the trigger again, my father ripped the weapon from my hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” He was livid and I backed away from him to the wall.

“It isn’t loaded.” I guiltily put my hands behind my back.

“You never know.” My father levered open the chamber.

“I checked before.”

“By pulling the trigger?” His anger simmered below the boiling point, as if he understood my fascination. “Stay away from guns."

“Yes, sir.”Neither my older brother nor I received another toy gun from my parents. We borrowed broken plastic guns from my next-door neighbor to participate in the games of WAR. Fighting Nazis in the woods wasn’t the same without your own weapon.The next summer our family moved from Maine to Boston. My parents sent my brother and me to Boy Scout camp. We had two weeks to earn the five merit badges necessary for promotion to a Star Scout. Swimming, canoeing, basketry, and forestry required several days each and on the second-to-last day the camp counselor led our troop to a shooting range. We were armed with .22s and positioned on the firing line. Hitting the target five out of ten times was enough for the rifle merit badge. I accomplished this task by the seventh shot. They were 3 bullets left. I loaded one into the chamber and aimed the rifle at a treetop beyond the sand bunker. I pulled the trigger. The bullet nicked my target and I sighted the gun onto a passing bird.“What you think you’re doing?” My counselor disarmed me.“Nothing.” There wasn’t anything behind the bunker other than trees.“You shot that in the air.” His face was swollen with outrage.“No, I didn’t, it slipped from my hand.” The rest of the scouts had stopped shooting. “You have any idea how far a bullet travels. Maybe a mile.” The counselor waved his finger in my face. “You could have killed someone and maybe you did.”“Sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, even though I wasn’t sorry.“Guns aren’t toys,” he pronounced with the authority backed by the Boy Scouts of the America and exiled me from the shooting range. I waited in my tent for the police to arrest me. Finally my brother returned from dinner with a plate of food.“No one died.” He placed the mashed potatoes and hamburger on my bunk.“Good.” This news cured my lack of appetite. “You going to tell Mom and Dad?”“No.”“Thanks.”Neither my brother nor I mentioned my errant shot to my parents and I avoided guns throughout my teenage years. Somehow I understood that I wanted to kill something. I couldn’t confess this urge to my priest, parents, brother, or friends. On long rides I dreamed about a gun in my hands. The supply of ammo was endless. My hometown was filled with victims and I had to get out before something bad happened to them. In 1968 I came home with enlistment papers for the Marines. I had lied about my age.“What’s this?” My mother crushed papers in her right hand.“I want to join the Marines?” I envisioned fighting the commie hordes with an M-16. After victory my girlfriend greeted me with kisses. The killer transformed into a hero.“Whatever for?” College was the only viable option for her children after high school, but she was very religious and I said, “I want to fight the godless communists in Vietnam.”“You’re 16 years old. You’re not going to war.” She called the recruiter and blasted his attempt to shanghai her son. I was angry at her refusal. Hr patriotism excluded her son’s going to war. My father was of a different mind. He had served in WWII.“See how you feel when you graduate from high school.”“The war will be over by then.”“Maybe not.” He and I had watched the Tet offensive on TV. The War wasn’t going anywhere, but by senior year in high school long hair ran over my collar and I attended peace rallies in Boston Common. My urge for murder withered with a bong in my hands.Two years after college I moved to New York. My first job was at a gay restaurant on East 60th Street. After work I hung around CBGBs. My friends from the restaurant introduced me to an actress from West Virginia. Her eyes were two different colors and her skin was whiter than powdered sugar. Alice’s favorite film was Goddard’s BREATHLESS. Mine was OUTLAW JOSEY WALES.We both loved the New York Dolls and signed a lease on a three-room apartment on East 10th Street. The monthly rent was $180. The dealers on the corner of 1st Avenue seemed harmless. At night gunshots echoed down the alley. I told Alice that they were firecrackers. She got used to the noise after a while, but my hand itched for a gun. I wanted to be Charles Bronson.Later that month I quit my busboy job to work the door at Hurrah’s on West 62nd Street. It was a rock disco. The security staff consisted of an off-duty cop and two bouncers from Harlem; Jack Flood and his nephew, Marvin. They didn’t look family, but I wasn’t questioning the parentage of someone Jack’s size. Conked hair framed a face plastered over his bones like beaten putty and his midnight-blue suit shined from too many cleanings. When we shook hands, his thick middle finger tickled my palm.“I’m not that way.” Half the staff of Hurrah was gay and he wanted to know if I went with men. I guessed I was his type.“Someone said you were a punk.” .Jack’s hand was bigger than a catcher’s mitt. Big hands meant big shoes. The slab of his tongue flicked over swollen lips.“Punk doesn’t mean that now.” Punks in prison were stick pussy. A grainy porno movie flashed in my head and I informed him, “Punk is the music they play here.”“So that’s what they called it.” He turned to his nephew. “Hey, they call this music ‘punk’.”Marvin nodded like he had also misunderstood its meaning.“I thought it was rock and roll.” He released my hand and whispered, “You keep that between you and me. You know that thing with my finger.”It was a request and not an order.“I know you.” Seymour the cop had been studying Jack for several minutes. “You a fighter?”“I fought Joe Louis in Seattle.”“1951?” Seymour narrowed his eyes like his memory wasn’t working right.“Uncle Jack went down three times like a Times Square hooker.” Marvin joked from the door.“But Louis never knocked me out?” Jack squared up to his nephew. Jack had him by 2 inches and 50 pounds. Marvin dropped his eyes. “To tell the truth Louis was past his prime and weighed 30 pounds more than me. I gave the folks a show. I made enough to buy my first Lincoln and I got a shot at Harry Matthews. Now that white boy stood toe-to-toe for 10 rounds in Seattle, givin’ away 10 pounds. I lost on points.”He winked to indicate he wasn’t telling all the truth. I later learned that Jack had retired with a record of 20-14-2 before entering prison for several long stretches. He never said for what.“Harry Matthews was a good fighter.” Seymour nodded wordlessly to indicate the two men had an understanding.Working with Jack was easy. One look from the old fighter stopped most trouble from becoming a problem. Our slack time at the door was consumed by stories. Seymour spun arcane tales of gambling at the track. His wins outnumbered his losses, although the heels of his shoes were round as a baseball. Marvin extolled his girlfriends’ virtues. Each one was beautiful than the last. I was too young to be anything more than a listener.“You don’t know nuttin’ ’bout women.” Jack offered from the chair behind the desk. He occupied a lot of space no matter where he sat or stood. “You ever been married.”“What’s the difference?” Marvin played straight man for Jack’s comments.“Married women kill you if you leave ‘em and single women if you don’t go.”Marvin, Seymour, and I looked at each other in confusion.“If I have to explain, then you don’t need explainin’.” Jack pointed out the door at his battered 1968 Lincoln Continental. “I always keep the tank full. Never know when a woman might be after you.”A Lincoln, a full tank of gas, and Jack Flood was a movie without a screenplay. Only one of Jack’s women came to the club. Nadine was Jamaican. Her hips were spread as wide as a small sofa. She wanted to see the Specials do MESSAGE TO YOU RUDY.“Jack likes them built for comfort.” Marvin whistled in admiration.“I like all kinds.” Jack smacked his lips upon seeing Alice. She stormed upstairs and didn’t speak with me until we were back at the apartment.“I don’t like the way he looks at me.” Alice was beautiful enough to be in movies, but her scowl aged her twenty years.“Who?” I played dumb.“Your friend Jack.”“A lot of men look at you.” After a year in the city she should have been used to men staring at her, as if she was naked.“Not like a killer.” Alice told me to speak with Jack and I said yes.The next night the Dead Boys filled the club beyond fire capacity. After the headliners took the stage, I pulled Jack into the side hallway.“What’s up?” Jack cracked his beefy knuckles.“Do me a favor and don’t look at my girlfriend like she’s fried chicken.”“That’s all. I thought you were goin’ to have me fired.”“Why would I do that?” Only the manager could dismiss staff.“You don’t know.”“Know what?”“Nuttin’, that’s good.” His broad face broke into a guilty smile. “So we’re good.”“Sure.” He was doing something underhanded at the door. I was to turn a blind eye. “As long as you ignore my girlfriend.”“Sure thing, but you know the closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat.”Alice hated my working nights.“Can’t you get a regular job?”“I could.” And I promised to look for a 9-5, except the money from Hurrah was good, each night a different punk band from NY, London, or LA played to full houses, and hanging with Jack was better than watching THE TONIGHT SHOW on TV. The only time we really had to do anything was when people tried to sneak inside for free. Jack hated this.“They’re stealin’ money from our mouths.”One night the B-52s packed the house. The manager told us not to let anyone else enter the club. We shut the door. 2 Puerto Ricans jimmied open a side entrance. Jack dragged the interlopers to the front door and booted them onto the sidewalk with a size 14 shoe.“We’ll be back.” The pair warned, walking off toward the projects.“People always saying that.” Jack repositioned the gun behind his back. “Never know when it’s gonna be true.”Thirty minutes later the band hit the stage. Marvin went upstairs to watch the show. I got drinks from the bar and returned to the entrance. Jack was leaning against the wall. It was only the two of us.“Where’s Seymour?”“Outside calling his bookie.”I handed Jack his cognac and coke. He didn’t have time to drink it, because ten Puerto Ricans crowded into the hallway. Five of them held stilettos and my stomach shrank behind my spine. Jack coldcocked the first attacker. The second stuck a shiv into his side.“Motherfuckah, you fucked up my suit.”He hammered his assailant’s nose a short right. Another he mauled with a left. A knife slashed at my face. Jack caught the blade with his right hand and cracked the Puerto Rican’s skull with his elbow. Jack pulled out the .38 with his unwounded hand and threw it to me. I caught the pistol by the grip“Shoot the motherfuckahs.” Jack was bleeding from three places.The Puerto Ricans fled the hallway and I chased them onto the sidewalk. They were already 100 feet away. I had been waiting for this moment since I was a kid. I pulled the trigger and the front windows of a car shattered upon the bullet’s impact. My Boy Scout training hadn’t covered shooting at moving targets. The gang accelerated like a DJ had sped up a 45 to 78 rpm. There was no second shot.“I’m goin’ to the hospital.” Jack hobbled up to me, blood seeping between his fingers. “You bettah get rid of that before the cops come.”“I’ll do it right now.” I stuffed the .38 into my leather jacket.“Good. Now flag me down taxi. Cab drivers don’t pick up bleedin’ brothers.” Jack leaned on a car and I stopped a taxi.The driver protested about Jack’s messing up his seat. I gave him an extra $10. They drove away to Roosevelt Hospital on 8th Avenue and I went up on the roof of the nightclub. Another five bullets were in the chambers. Pulling the trigger had been easy. Shooting someone was the next step. I had a feeling in the right circumstance that would be easy too, so I dropped the gun down an airshaft. It clanged twice on its ascent and I returned to the door, wondering whether Jack would live. The police were waiting on the sidewalk. Five patrol cars. Ten cops. Two of them were plainclothes detectives. They had a lot of questions. I told them 90% of the facts.“What about the gun?” The detective smelled gun smoke in the air.“What gun?”“Someone reported a shot.” He stared at my hand. The trace of sulphur on my fingers hadn’t come from fireworks.“I didn’t hear any shot.” Seymour showed his badge. The detective accepted his fellow cop’s explanation and dropped his ear to the radio. “A couple of those boys stole a taxi. They crashed it in the park. We’ll show this ‘Jack Flood’ their pictures.”No charges were pressed by either side.“Jack has a record of violence long as your arm and not just in the ring.” The club’s lawyer explained to me in the club’s office and then read out some of Jack’s previous charges. All were felonies. Most involved guns. “Better Jack drop it.”Jack said the same thing in the hospital.“How you feeling?” I felt bad that I was untouched.“Only scratches.” The bandages covered his ebony arm and chest. He was a tough old man. “Good thing I wasn’t gettin’ killed, because you shoot like shit and that’s a good thing, because you don’t want to be woundin’ people who are tryin’ to kill you. You gotta have a killer instinct and you don’t got that.”“How can you tell?” I had aimed the gun.“If you wanted to kill ‘em, then they’d be killed.”I had failed the test, but neither was I entirely a man of peace, which was why I got along with Jack. After his discharge from the hospital, I invited him to dinner in my neighborhood. That night Alice got ready to leave before he arrived at our apartment.“You only like him, because he’s a gangster.”“No.” I liked Jack, because he was Jack Flood.“And you want to be a murderer too.”“No, I don’t.” That desire had been killed by my shooting Jack’s gun.“When was the last time you wrote a poem? Not since you took that job.” She slammed the door after that sentence.Jack liked the Italian restaurant on the corner of 1st Avenue and 10th Street. Lanza’s was empty and the food was mediocre. The wine was sour, but the prices were cheap.“Ain’t nothin’ bad gonna happen to a black man in an Italian restaurant.” Jack couldn’t have been happier. “Not like Harlem. I always got to watch my back in restaurants up there.”After dinner he’d walk across the street to his Lincoln. It was parked next to a hydrant. The dealers on the corner stepped aside for Jack. Their respect had nothing to do with the two guns on him.“They don’t know me, but they know me.” He tore the parking ticket into shreds. “I’m old school. Not many of me left in this city. You wanna go see James Brown?”“James Brown?” James Brown had saved Boston the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination by calling for calm from the stage of the Garden. “You know James Brown?”“He’s an old friend.” Jack slipped behind the wheel. The Lincoln was the perfect fit for a man his size. “He’s playing at the Lone Star.”“It’s on 5th Avenue.” Alice wasn’t going to be home for another three hours.“Get in, I’ll introduce you to him.”Jack drove cross-town on 9th and backed up 5th for several blocks. Cars blew their horns, as he burned a red light in reverse.“Jack?”“I know what I’m doin’.” He wrenched the wheel to the right to park right in front of the Lone Star.“Good parking job.” His driving explained the many dents in the Lincoln.“Always is when you don’t pay attention to the law.”The tickets were $10. Once inside Jack asked, “They take your ticket?”“No.”“They ain’t’ takin’ no one’s ticket.” Jack eyeballed the door. “Go up to everyone and ask them for their tickets and I’ll sell them outside for $5.”“They cost $10.”“We’re not retail.”Jack and I overpacked the bar with 100 people. Some of the 14-piece band crowded onto a minuscule stage. The horn section was lined up the stairs. James Brown barely had room to dance. Jack and I bought a bottle of champagne. Once the show was over, he took me up to the dressing room. James Brown was signing autographs for his fans. He froze upon seeing Jack.“I ain’t dead.” Jack hugged the smaller man.“No one said you were.” James Brown wiped the sweat off his face.“Liar.” Jack released James. “This is my friend.”“I saw you at the Newport Jazz Festival. You blew Zeppelin off the stage.”“Thanks.”Jack lifted a finger to signal the two needed time alone. He slipped the Godfather of Soul some money. The next night we racketed the door again and Jack confessed that he was doing the same at Hurrah.“Those kids don’t wanna buy from a brother, but a white boy?” He let the sentence hang in the wind.“We could make some money.” SRO shows packed the club with 700 people. Tickets were $10. 50 tickets a night split two ways was $250 each. “I think about it.”Thinking about it was one thing. Doing it was another. The door had too many eyes. The manager caught onto the scheme after a month. He demanded other names. I offered mine. He fired me without any severance pay. Jack kept his job and contacted the security at Madison Square Garden, the Palladium, and several other concert halls. I sold excess tickets. Jack always got a cut.Alice and I broke up that winter. I left her for a blonde model. Lisa didn’t like the way Jack looked at her either, but she never had any reason to socialize with him.Jack, Marvin, and I watched the first Roberto Duran-Sugar Ray Leonard fight at Danceteria on West 19th Street. We had bet heavily on Duran. His unanimous victory paid 9-5. I shouted for drinks. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a familiar face. It was one of the Puerto Ricans from the stabbing. Jack slowly turned his head.“Is that who I think it is?” Jack wasn’t expecting any lies.“Yeah.”“You don’t want a piece of this and you ain’t seen nothin’.” Jack snapped his fingers and his nephew trapped the Puerto Rican against the wall.“Jack, we won money tonight.” I was pleading for a life.“I win money all the time.” Jack’s hand slipped behind his jacket. He liked a gun in the small of his back, because he could feel it that way.“Don’t do this.”“Don’t do what? Ain’t nothin’ happen yet.” Jack walked across the room. People avoided contact. The young Puerto Rican boy prayed with quivering lips. Jack whispered in his ear, then patted him on the cheek. He returned to the bar with Marvin. The Puerto Rican boy was gone.“What you say to him?”“Said it was his lucky day, but I’d see him again.”“And what will you do then?”“Depends on my mood and tonight my mood is good.”I kept expecting the Puerto Rican boy to come back with an avenging gang, but he had learned his lesson from the confrontation at Hurrah. Jack Flood was more trouble than he was worth.A week later Jack and I were eating at Lanza’s. We washed down two plates of meatball and spaghetti with two bottles of horrid wine. As we waited for the check, I asked, “Jack, would you have killed that kid the night of Duran fight?”“Kill ‘em?” Jack scrunched his lips as if the next words were hard to say. “Nah, no reason for killin’. He ain’t killed me.”“But you looked like you wanted to kill him.”Lookin’ like and killin’ ain’t the same. You know why I threw that gun to you?”“Because you were hurt.”“Yeah, but the real reason is that I was scared to kill ‘em. If I did, then I was goin’ back inside and I’m too old for prison. “ This was a confession. One Jack really didn’t want to make, but he said, “It bothered me, forcing you to make that decision to shot or not. Everyone sees movies and thinks it’s easy pullin’ a trigger. Ain’t never easy pullin’ a trigger.”“That’s true.” I had pulled the trigger without thinking.“Good thing your shooting wasn’t worth shit.”Jack and I parted ways as people do in the lives we led. I heard Marvin was shot dead in a Harlem alley, but nothing about Jack. I decided that he was still driving that big black Lincoln. It was better than thinking him dead, because men like Jack Flood don’t get to the heaven in the after-life, even though they understand the real value of ‘Thou shalt not kill’. Jack had taught me that lesson. I never bought a gun in my life. Never owned one either. I shoot them only at gun ranges. My urge for murder is mostly extinct, but I know what it’s like, because every bit of Jack was a little bit me. At least I’d like to think it was. Not any more. Not any less. Just enough.

Friday, June 27, 2008

PM Samak easily withstood the opposition's call of no-confidence, as his coalition-led Senate polled 280-162 for the wily politician although protest will continue against his government in the months to come. These demonstrations will amount to little since the army has vowed to remain in the barracks and nnone of the poitcal parties are willing to hold an expensive elecgtion process, so Samak's departure from office will probably be at the behest of his own party and, until Thaksin is cleared of his corruption charges, the PPP and its base will be happy with old Red Nose or ja-mook champoo staying in Governement House.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

PM Samak has announced that old Hopewell project is actually an ancient Thai temple and this astonishing discovery should placate his countrymen's indignation at ceding territory to Cambodia so that his friend can make money with the parking lot concession.

George W Bush incensed that the USA has yet to find Osama Bin Laden has pulled out all the stops to capture the 9/11 mastermind before his departure from 1600 Pennsylvannia Avenue and this week Federal authorities arrested hundreds of adult prostitutes and 21 throw-away over a five-day series of raids in a vain attempt to discover if any of them knew where Osama Bin Laden is hiding under the guise as a pimp. None of the arrestees admitted to any contact with the Al-Qaeda leader, despite threats of deportation to Gitmo. The FBI director was disappointed with these sexual criminals and victims for not doing their patriotic duty.

"I'm sure one of them has to have heard something from their customers." Mr. Mueller also promised to widen the country-wide sweep to gain more information on the terrorist's whereabouts.

"We'll get him if it takes a hundred years."

It's already taken 7, so there's only 93 to go.

The FBI are looking for female undercover agents to work as prostitutes.

Mike's Shopping Mall on Beach Road was the setting for yet-another suicide by a desperate farang. Pattaya's Stairway to Heaven has seen a rash of fatal leaps over the years, this time from the secluded back of the building into the parking lot.

There is no suicide hotline in Pattaya, which is a tough town on farangs. Thais don't really care for them and farangs don't give a shit about their fellow race members either.

I was sitting in Maggie's Bar on Soi Cheap Charlie and overheard a British git say about his dead friend, "When he was in hospital he never asked for a thing."

Friends in need shouldn't have to ask, but farangs avoid sinking farangs here as if their bad luck may be contagious and only gather at the end to see if they can buy the dead man's TV cheap.

Pattaay Daily News published an editorial about suicides

http://pattayadailynews.com/showfeature.php?FeatureID=0000000836

Here's the abridged version;

To our dear avid readers: PDN is taking the bold step of publishing this poignant story of Mr. John Doe (real name withheld through consideration for his family) who committed suicide, as he is a typical example of the increasing number of foreigners who come to Pattaya, fall madly in love after 5 days with a bar girl, get cheated and find no alternative but to commit suicide as the only way out of their dilemma.

John Doe's death was reported in the local press after he hanged himself in a popular Jomtien building. The media, however, gave no details of the circumstances surrounding his death, probably because he only divulged these to a few people, largely his family. Locals, including farang residents, have become so blasé and anesthetised to the almost constant reports of foreign suicide that they likely gave it little thought after the initial coverage.

However, we at PDN feel indignant at having to report these deaths almost on a daily basis, with absolutely no steps being taken to prevent them and virtually no attempt to follow up the consequences as the litany of suicides goes on and on. Perhaps there should be bold notices at Suvarnabhumi Airport giving stark warning of the consequences of falling in love with heartless, unscrupulous Pattaya bargirls.

This, for the first time, is the true story of what led a foreigner to commit suicide in our supposedly "Fun City". In the case in question, that of John Doe, the publisher of PDN received certain letters from a friend of a friend, whose name cannot be mentioned, relating to the circumstances surrounding his death. We conducted some research and discovered the account outlined in the letters was apparently the truth and the participants in the story actually exist. Here is the real life story for once of one for whom Thailand was decidedly not a land of smiles, rather a nightmare of torment, betrayal and fear.

We also consider it extremely sad that his family did not choose to get involved after he had related his predicament and made a request for help and financial aid to extricate himself from his apparent nightmare. His family, though, apparently took no notice of his pleas for help.

He starts the first of his letters apologising to his children for being estranged from them and asks for their forgiveness for what he is about to do. He states in the letter that he had never been more frightened in his life and though approaching middle-age, felt that he had not achieved anything in his life. He apparently came to Thailand with the hope of a new start, but that was a very big mistake, as he puts it. He continues "I was completely naive and misled from the moment I took a business here and now it is no good." He states that he doesn't have any money for a flight home, nor money to pay for his visa and was afraid that if he was caught he would go to prison in Thailand.

John Doe complains that "I have to say this is one of the worst experiences of my life and in these countries we are robbed, stolen from, lied to, misled, misrepresented, but we have no rights. People here do not like to say 'no', but they lie to you instead. I feel scared. I have not slept for 3 days and do not leave the room and I think the easiest way for me is to end my life."

Following this, he says he prays he's successful in his suicide bid, because medical expenses in Thai hospitals are exorbitant! The first letter ends with a poignant plea to his children. " I am empty, but have a lot of tears inside as I love you all and know I will not share those precious moments with any of you again and whether you believe or not have always respected and looked up to you all," John says.

In his second letter, apparently to his brother, which he left on his laptop, but never sent, he says it is entitled "goodbye," and continues "it might help you in understanding where my life isn't at." He also bemoans the fact that his children still won't talk to him.

Next he says" We are the creators of our own destinies and I am still unsure of what mine is. I know I have done the wrong thing in the past and I think we all have but God forgives us all, no matter what we have done."

He continues " You know the bar in Thailand I was so excited about? I have never in life faced the problems with people that I have done in the past 5 weeks. Tell "X" from me to be very cautious and not even to trust his lady as they say they understand, but they don't and not to trust women, especially Thai business people." John advises X that he can even buy the police here in Thailand as it is very common.

Then John begins to relate the start of the main problem "Z set me up because we had argument and I told her I wanted a break and in the eyes of Thai people it is not the done thing, as foreigners for them are a way of life. She could not accept that I wanted time out. I came home one Friday night after we split and she was in my hotel room with a friend having a drink and she was let in without my knowledge. She (then) went into the bathroom and came out with slashed wrists and before I knew it, she was rubbing the blood all over my shirt. I went downstairs, got a man to call the ambulance but 5 hours later, she and friend said I did it. They set me up and I had no idea at the time, but these things are common here. "

John continues that he also attached a document that he sent to the landlord of misrepresentation and deception. "The sad part is it goes on 500 times a day as there are fools like me that come to Thailand thinking it is a great place, as things are cheap and we can all make money," John continues.

John then relates how he purchased a café where there were no bar girls. He says "we bought a café with 4 staff and in my ignorance and a lack of peoples' honesty, we took the café on 1 week before the tourist season dies for 3 to 4 months. I was mislead and I am responsible for talking everyone into it and I want to repay them all if I get through this."

The final letter was from John to the Thai person/landlord from whom he originally bought the cafe where he presents a litany of complaints of how "I have been cheated and mislead from day 1 by yourself and certain staff members," as he puts it. He states that he doesn't want to continue with the contract, which had been breached by the landlord retaking possession 4 days before the contract's expiry, and also because the said landlord had been talking to all the employees about matters that concern him personally, their positions and the termination of certain employees.

The examples of how John was cheated are outlined briefly as follows:

· The company was set up incorrectly · The accountant misled and persistently refuses to speak to John personally, but goes through the previous owner.· He should have had a 49 % shareholding from day 1, but didn't receive it · He should have been added as shareholder director, but after 2 weeks this wasn't complied with· He was lead to believe by the previous owner that the turnover was Bt8000 per day but the person failed to mention that close proximity of low season and resultant fall in daily takings to less than Bt2000 for a minimum of 3 months. · He was told only 6 people would eat for free, but it transpired there were "15 people who eat and drink when and how much they want."· The previous owner and staff not only don't pay for drinks, but there are no records kept· He complains he has no say or control, but the previous owner still maintains control· Staff members help themselves to money and fail to record anything· The previous owner failed to disclose the fact that they would be losing approx 1 metre of their prime dining area as the council has claimed that for a road or foot path · The previous owner interfered with John's love life by denigrating his chosen girlfriend.

John concludes to the previous owner "It is obvious that you want to maintain control and have a hidden agenda, that is why I refuse to continue with the lease as your information prior to going in was misleading, and deceptive and took advantage of the fact that I am a foreigner. I am very disillusioned with your behaviour and not used to doing business this way as it seems that you can do what you when you want as I am not Thai and will be perusing this matter legally."

A week following this altercation with the cafe owner, John Doe committed suicide. There may well have been other determinants that we are ignorant of, this especially as he constantly complains of being afraid.

His family only reacted when we published his story on PDN and that was to demand that we withdrew his pictures from our publication. After, several communiqués, we complied, despite the fact that other media in Pattaya continued to keep displaying their photos of the unfortunate incidents surrounding John Does' death. We heard no more from John's family after this, but assume they reclaimed his body.

Anyway, the point of PDN publishing these confidential letters is because we feel that someone has to do something to warn the tourists to wake up and do their due diligence about the realities of life in Thailand, the Thai people and the Thai culture. If individuals who want to start a bar or business or buy a house or condo after falling in love with a person they barely know, take heed of this story, which is typical of how farangs get taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals. If they take due heed, they might be spared much heartbreak and in the worst case scenario, see no other option but suicide. Remember, Thailand is all too often the land of shattered dreams!

America is a land of No; no drugs, no drinking, no weird sex. America is also a country of innovation and the two nations went head to head this week when under-cover detectives raided a 'brothel bus' cruising Miami Beach's beach strip . The popular trip on the Babylon-mobile cost $40 for an open bar with scantily clad lap dancers willing to provide oral sex for a $100. Sodom and Gomorrah was taken off the brothel bus' list of destinations after females officers in party dress witnessed money changing hands for sex. Miami Beach Police confiscated the elaborately-decorated limo and arrested the 29 year-old entrepreneur for pandering and the usual assortment of sexual misdemeanors as part of a city-wide crackdown on the sex industry.

Why can't they let the people have fun?

Mostly because they're too fat to have sex.

My uncle Carmine always thought America would be much better letting people sin without it being a crime; suicide, smoking, drinking, sex, drugs, whatever. You establish a DMZ for the sodomites and they can do anything they want there as long as they sign a waiver absolving the State, Feds, and anyone else of possible legal actions.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The re-alignment of the Cambodian-Thai border at cliffside temple of Preah Vihear has ignited a firestorm of anger against the PM Samak's ruling coalition government , especially as this shift of the frontier appears to be benefiting Samak's puppet master, Ole Blue Eyes Shinawatra, thanks to the less-than-transparent dealings of the former PM's lawyer in settling the dispute in favor of the Cambodians. The dispute about the temple has galvanized support for the opposition without really threatening Samak, who can count of 2/3s of the Senate votes, although there are chinks in its armor.

"There are three things that can make Thai people emotional," claims Gothom Arya, a veteran human rights campaigner here. "The royal family, nationalism and religion."

Samak dismisses efforts to evict him from government house as futile and says that the International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, but access from the neighboring country is only by cliff. Thai Rath, a conservative newspaper ran an article about lands Thailand lost to its neighbors Burma, Laos, and Cambodia without mentioning the annexation of the four southern provinces of Yala from Malaysia. Thais are extremely chauvinistic about their country and in 2003 a Thai actress's statement that Angkor Wat was a Thai sparked anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh. Several of Thaksin's businesses were razed and he threatened to send in Thai commandos to protect his property. Calm heads prevailed in that incident, but Thaksin is a master manipulator, so you can't tell on what side of this dispute he is betting his money, although the Thai courts jail two of his lawyers this week for attempted bribery of the Supreme court with $60,000 in baht were found in a lunch bag within the tribunal chambers.

$60,000 baht?

I'm bought at least for the weekend.

As for pissing off the Thais.

It's all smoke and mirrors for Samak and he knows he isn't going anywhere but home to government house to cook some food no matter how vehemently the democratic leader accuses the PM of collusion.

"Mai tham arai."I ain't done nothing.Check out the satellite map. No matter what the Cambodians still will have to climb the cliff.

The Thai PM had to sneak in the back door at Government House to avoid a confrontation with thousands of protesters, while the wily politician's opponents began a no confidence vote in a Parliament controlled by his ruling coalition. Is 5-month old Samak government down for the count?

"I am not insane. I will not stand down because of this intimidation." Samak announced to lawmakers on Monday, but the continued siege of Government House curtails the PM's movements and thereby his ability to rule through the force of his personality

So if not Samak, who?

Nobody?

As an anarchist I like that idea. Hi so operators within Thailand will not let go of the wheel, so look for another of the old faces to take charge after the chaos.

Hospitals around Bangkok have been noting an increase of females entering their facilities with complaints of perverted sexual abuse by hi-so wealthy men, sometimes as many as 50 women a day seeking refuge from these sadists. Most victims are maids or household help although one matron was forced to watch her husband have sex with another woman.

Doctors are at a loss as to the cause of the violent upswing, since lack of money, which is the leading contributor to domestic violence among the poor, isn't an issue with high society.

I personally think these people do it because they like it and can get away with it, since the rich or kon yai are almost gods to the police and anyone of lesser social standing. Obviously none of the offenders have come forward to explain their nefarious actions, but it must be due to boredom with the modern world.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Lisa killed me playing scrabble last night. She got 33 points for XI. A Chinese measurement. I bid her good evening and drove the Landrover down S. County Road under a fading full moon. Passing Joe's Crab Shack my phone lit up with an SMS from my Thai mistress. Our baby was going to be a boy. I phoned the phone to tell a friend about the news of my baby being a boy.I didn't get far. A Christmas tree of lights exploded behind me. The Palm Beach cops last night. 10pm. "Let me get back to you. The cops want to talk with me."

I pulled over to the curb and kept my hands on the steering wheel. The officer came to the passenger side and clicked his flashlight on the glass. I put it down and saw that he was young. I don't believe in talking too much at this juncture. As far as i knew I hadn't done anything wrong. At least not today.

"Yes, officer."

"Your right-rear tail light is out." His accent was Floridian and hair-cut like he was expecting his reserve until to get shipped to Iraq.

"Really?" I had only one beer at my friend's house, while we were playing scrabble.

"Yep, license and registration and insurance, please." He was polite for a cop, then again this was Palm Beach.

The license was in my wallet. The registration in the glove compartment. I couldn't find the insurance. Giving him the first two, I apologized, "Sorry, this isn't my car. I'm house-sitting on King's Road. The insurance is on the desk there."

The officer asked the address and I correctly gave him the number.

"I'm sorry about the light. Does this mean I'm getting a ticket?"

"No, if everything checks out, it's a simple verbal warning."

"Thanks, I was speaking with my friend. I must found out I'm having a baby boy."

"Congratulations. I'll be right with you."

While I was in Thailand I wondered about my first encounter with the police, because Thais drive with total disregard for traffic laws. The entire country has 4 breathalyzers and if caught for DWI the Thai police will make you drink water until you pass the test. American cops aren't so nice. My good friend, Andrew C, was invited to a dinner party at Paul Kasman on 10th Avenue in NYC. He was flying to London on the morrow. His car was packed with his luggage. I met him on Orchard Street to get some money. We had a Stella at a Lower East Side bar. During the affair at the art gallery he drank six glasses of wine and one of champagne. Coming outside to smoke a cigarette he spotted a tow truck backing up to haul away his Audi to the docks. He got there before the clamps had been hooked to his car and Andrew drove away to find a decent parking spot. It took more than ten minutes. Finally he crammed the car into a spot a block from the gallery and got out of the car. A light blinded him. It came from an unmarked NYPD cop car. Two cops ordered him to stay where he was.

"Have you been drinking?" The driver asked shining a wavering flashlight in Andrew's face.

"I had two drinks at a party around the corner." He explained with a Norfolk county stutter that he was flying to see his parents. "Tomorrow morning."

"I don't care about your travel plans." The driver was clearly disinterested and requested that Andrew either submit to a alcohol test or get in their car for a trip to the precinct house. Andrew thought about it for two seconds and opted for the Breathalyzer lottery. He blew into the device and passed. The cop was not happy.

"You barely passed."

"Barely passed under, thank you." almost only counts in atomic bombs.

Andrew locked the car and went back to the party. He didn't drink anything else. Coming out of the gallery he saw the cops waiting. He smiled and said, "Bon Voyage."

he was lucky and so was I. The Palm Beach cop returned to the car and said, "Get that fixed."

The Preah Vihear ruins were shut by Cambodian authorities fearful of Thai protests against the prospective border change at the site. Thai PM Samak was castigated by senators vehemently opposed to any cessation of soil to their neighbors, despite UNESCO's backing of a plan to recognize the ancient temple as a World Heritage site. 200 Thai demonstrators completed a "Dharma Walk" to the frontier in hopes that more Thais will join in the protest. Cambodia will open the temple only once the protesters leave, but monks have join the gathering and the Thai army has gone to alert to prevent any trouble.

Samak says Thailand will lose no territory in accordance to a International Court of Justice's ruling in 1962. I've been to the Thai-Cambodia border in several locations and each time the soldier on each side have agreed that the present border was shifted during the period of civil war in Cambodia.

Then again few Thais can read a map.

Americans even less.

Only 17% of US Citizens can find New York on a map and most of them are alien residents.

And at this temple site the person with the most to lose in the owner of the parking lot concession.

It's really close to the ruins.

Maybe Preah Vihear should open a visa run service for farangs who want a little culture with a visa renewal.

PM Samak was angered by allegations from Thai senators that he was a puppet of hoon grabok of ex-TRT leader Thaksin Shinawatra said, "He and I are different. Our political parties may come from the same groups, but it's normal in Thai politics for people to change parties."

This statement diverges from his previous statements made in Isaan claiming he was a proxy or pôo môp am-nâat of the popular ex-premier. Samak's volte a face is an obvious effort to distance himself from the former leader, who is facing a flood of corruption charges.

Further defections from Thaksin will be announced in the weeks to come as the Senate broaden the net of investigation.

"I barely knew him." or "He never said nothing to me." and some politicians cut the strings that bind to protect their name, freedom, and wealth. Cutting the strings that bind

Pattaya attracts all sorts and usually the type of people to avoid and be seen avoiding, however you can't live in a Thai vacuum, especially if you don't pood Thai or speak the language, so you end up meeting all these sorts at bars and go-gos. Harmless conversation can't hurt anyone. Only some farangs aren't so harmless. They prey on the gullible and there are plenty of those around judging from the number of men who sign over ownership of their houses to Thai women without a lawyer looking at the contract.

So farangs find themselves in dubious business sucking away their retirement income faster than a crack addiction.

"He seemed like such a good guy."

My old boss Manny Winick taught me one thing. "Never trust anyone."

But how can you tell if someone is a con.

Here are some warning signs;

Is your prospective business partner only know by one name?

Does he express concern about his business endeavor saying, "If only I had another $10,000, then I would be on top of the world."

Do his stories change from time to time?

Eyes are the windows to the soul, so if people look to the right when they are telling a story, then in all likelihood they recalling the incident from reality, whereas someone looking to the left is fabricating the story off the top of his head.

Of course if you want to be sure it's good to do a check on the character of your new best friend and finally if something seems too good to be true then it is too good to be true and if you have any real doubts, get an elephant to sniff him out, you don't see them getting conned too much

The plane from La Guardia to Boston costs about $250 and the trip takes roughly 3.5 hours with getting to the airport, waiting at the airport, flight, and landing and getting your bags.

The Acela train is almost the same price and NYC-Boston will eat up 4 hours.

Fung Wah bus out of Chinatown is $15. Trip time 4 hours and they sell a hot dog for a dollar next to the ticket stand. Friends question the safety on the buses. All my voyages have been bereft of any danger. Not so this morning. A loaded dump truck slammed into a parked Fung Wah bus, which knocked over a lamppost, killing a passing pedestrian. 4 other people were taken to the hospital, two of them passengers.

The driver of the dump truck has yet to explain the circumstances of the crash, but this is the 6th mishap for the Fung Wah bus. One bus fell on its side and another burst into flames. There was also a crash into the Allston tollbooth during a snow storm and two other accidents.

Abortion, family values, gay rights, and school vouchers are touchstone issues for the usually vocal religious right of America. This fringe coalition of GOP supporters have restrained from entering the 2008 presidential fray mostly because John McCain is not a candidate with whom they feel comfortable, however the Arizona senator is a republican and James Dobson from Focus on the Family has finally risen from the depths of despair to lambaste Barack Obama for distorting the Bible and pushing a 'fruitcake ie queer interpretation of the Constitution.

The conservative's awakening can be accredited to the democratic candidate's comment about what part of the Bible are Americans supposed to teach. "James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?"

Hearing this comparison to Reverend Al, Mr. Dobson decided to take umbrage to Obama's reference to Leviticus, which condones slavery and condemns shellfish as well as that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application. Folks haven't been reading their Bibles."

Like I said. I never read the Bible and I'm glad there are none in Thai hotels, but you know Dobson has the Old and New Testaments etched into his skull like a crip sheet inked on his wrist, so he can back up saying, "Obama is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

Bible thumpers might be outrage by the defiling of the blessed Bible, but Dobson has vowed not to vote in this election, since he considers McCain just as bad as Obama and the GOP can say good-bye to the White House unless Bush manufactures a reason to serve a 3rd term.

I graduated from Boston College with a degree in economics. My grade average was a little better than a C- and accordingly my work experience has never tapped on whatever knowledge I ignored during classes with Robert B. Samuelson, now a contributor to Newsweek Magazine, yet my mind responds freely to any stimuli about the ebb and flow of economics due to my understanding that money, not love, rules the world and right now not many people have cash on hand, despite 8 years of GW Bush's hoodoo-voodoo trickle-down economics.

Money has levitated upward to the mega-rich in the billions faster than they can spend it. The GOP wants to keep the tax breaks for the rich, saying money is better managed by the rich, while the Democrats are ready to let the Bush tax breaks lapsed in 2010 to refill the federal coffers and pay down the trillions of debt accrued by our president, who when he said, "Bring it on." wasn't talking about the bill for the war of terrorism.

Congress is at a stalemate and the president is conniving how to attack Iran to guarantee his 3rd term of office. 22 million Americans bought his con game about owning a house and half those are being strangled by flipped mortgages. The banks are fucking everyone in order to black their red and as a banker I met of the beach the other day said, "There isn't any bottom in this market yet."

They built up their countries to supply the West with shitty products to give the retailers insane profits.

Opps.

No brakes.

Where is the bottom?

I asked that on a financier at Bice in Palm Beach and he said, "If you are looking for the bottom then you see the up."

"And what's the up?"

"Sugar cane ethanol from Cuba." He spoke these words in a whisper. "Ethanol from sugar packs 8 times the bang as corn ethanol."

"What about the Cuban in Miami?"

"Fuck 'em. No one gets to the up without someone holding the down."

He went over to talk to a botox blonde I wouldn't have sex with unless I was on ludes. I left in my banged-up Benz. It was running on fumes. I have $10 min my pocket and I'm living in a mansion. No bills. No rent. Two liters on rum in the kitchen. What me worry?

We are writing today with many updates and exciting developments about the film and Douglas’ case.

We also writing to ask for your help!

Today is Douglas White’s 87th birthday. It is our hope and prayer that this will be the last birthday he spends in prison and that he will spend many more at home with his people.

We are thrilled to announce that Martin Sheen is narrating our film Holy Man! Mr. Sheen, an award winning actor and political activist, generously donated his time and talent to the project. We recorded Mr. Sheen in February, 2008, at POP Sound Studios in Santa Monica, California. The film is now in the final stages of post-production.

Douglas, like so many other Native Americans, has never had a lawyer other than the court-appointed public defender who represented him at his trial.

That is, until now.

As a result of our work on the film, we were able to discover new evidence of Douglas White’s innocence. We submitted this new evidence to two prominent Native lawyers in South Dakota and both agreed to take on Douglas' case pro bono. While these two prominent lawyers have agreed to represent Douglas pro bono, there are still expenses needed to cover testing, evaluations and court costs and we need your help.

Douglas is now 87 years old and has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and given less than one year to live. Our goal is to file this motion immediately and help him receive the justice he has been denied for 15 years.

Douglas White is an American treasure, one of the last living links to our collective heritage and an irreplaceable resource for both Native and non-indigenous people. His wisdom and knowledge need to be preserved. To lose it now is to lose it forever.

This motion could very well be Douglas' last chance.

So today, on Douglas’ 87th birthday, we are excited to launch The Douglas White Defense Fund fundraising campaign and online petition drive. Our goal is to raise 10,000 dollars and 10,000 signatures. And we need your help!

We hope you will take a few minutes of your time to watch our trailer, sign our online petition and make whatever donation you can. No amount is too small!

Johnson had been living in Bangkok between his oil rig gigs. Hers first choice was Ban Suay Nok near her brother. Johnson had been to Ban Suay Nok twice. Her brother had no family resemblance.

"He not brother 100%. Not same father." Thai relationship are very confusing for simple farangs.

Johnson decided to move to Pattaya, buying a house in his girlfriend's name. After they set up house, she asked to have the residence blessed by monks.

"It tradition and good luck."

Johnson's job was dangerous. He needed all the luck he could get. He let his tee-lat arrange the blessing and two weeks later seven monks showed up with a pick-up truck along with several other cars of his girlfriend's family. Johnson was glad to see that the 'brother' wasn't in attendance and sat through the mumbled prayers. He paid off the first six monks and then noticed that the head monk looked very familiar.

The 'brother'.

"No, not brother. He cousin brother. Not same father me."

Johnson wasn't too sure about that and short-changed the dubious monk a 1000 baht. An hour later the headman of the village came to his house and asked why Johnson had stiffed the monk his pay. Johnson explained his suspicions and the headman laughed, "Brother cousin boyfriend. You never know with Thai lady, but this man he monk. Not monkey business. MI speak English good, ha ha."

Johnson gave the headman the 1000 baht, plus another 500 to the headman for his time in settling the dispute. He asked me if I ever had my house blessed and I said once a year, except for last year and I got arrested by the cyber-crime unit, :So don't be cheap."

"But I'm not doing anything criminal." Johnson was straight.

"This is Thailand. You're in a foreign land. You never know. What about the 'brother'?"

"He quit being a monk and now is doing work on the house so he can buy a wig."

"Oh."

"But he's not her boyfriend."

"No?"

"Just family."

Oh." I said nothing and told his 'all the best', knowing how tight families are in Thailand.

Two gunman stuck a blow against the international banking system fucking over the masses with a daring daylight raid at the Savarnabhummi bank. They wore black jackets marked POLICE and forced the single female employee to open the safe. She resisted until one thief smacked her face and then it was open SESAME, unfortunately they also needed a key and waited 30 minutes for the arrival of the manager, who didn't need to be smacked at all to provide the necessary key.

Upon leaving the robbers warned the employees to not cooperate with the police or else they would be visited with more violence in the future. The police were quick to say that just because a bank robber wears a jacket with POLICE doesn't make them a policeman and suspect that this was a an inside job.

The take was only 3.3 million baht, barely enough to make the finance authorities realize that they will be seeing a lot for robberies in this challenging times.

An elderly couple, Margaret and Bert, moved to Texas. Bert always wanted a pair of authentic cowboy boots, so seeing some on sale, he bought them and wore them home.

Walking proudly, he sauntered into the kitchen and said to his wife, 'Notice anything different about me?'

Margaret looked him over. 'Nope."

Frustrated, Bert stormed off into the bathroom, undressed and walked back into the kitchen completely naked except for the boots. Again he asked Margaret, a little louder this time, 'Notice anything different NOW?'

Margaret looked up and exclaimed, 'Bert, what's different?

"It's hanging down today, it was hanging down yesterday, and it'll be hanging down again tomorrow!" Furious, Bert yelled, 'AND DO YOU KNOW WHY IT'S HANGING DOWN, MARGARET?'

Pratumamk Hill offers residents and visitors to Pattaya a spectacular view of the crescent bay and any pedestrians along the Beach Road can admire the splendor of the navy park dipping unimpeded by development into the sea, however the Bali Hai pier is surrounded by hundreds of boats and diesel buses. The former leaking oil into the harbor and the latter spewing diesel fumes into the air. City officials have come up with a brilliant plan to eliminate the eyesore of these boats by proposing a shared car/boat park under Pratumak Hill. The builder's environmental supervisor Daranee Tor-Charoen assured the public that the 200-meter long three-storeys high building will hardly be noticeable to anyone standing at the northern end of Beach Road.

Like many environmental advisers to Thai business her name only appears once in a google search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Daranee+Tor-Charoen+tesco&btnG=Search. This single reference was for the article in the Pattaya Mail, a firm believer that any development is a benefit to the public as long as the benefactors spend their money in country.

My solution to this problem is simple.

Do nothing and let things go the way they are.

If it's broke, who gives a shit as long as fixing it doesn't break it more.

Pattaya a town renown for its go-gos and lady boys will celebrate the opening of the Pattaya Festival Mall next year as part of its expansion to induce Thais and farangs to spend more money of shit they don't really need from Tops, Robinson's and a myriad of semi-luxury clothing chains. The three-year development will present the beach resort with the time-honored bragging rights to having the largest beachfront shopping mall in Asia, although its 210,000 sq. meters is minuscule in comparison to 890,000 sq. meters of the world's largest shopping mall in Dongguan,m China.

For world's largest malls go to this URL http://www.easternct.edu/depts/amerst/MallsWorld.htm

In order to have achieve that size the developers, Central Pattana Public Company LTD would have had to knock down everything on Soi 7 and 8 and 9 plus Pattaya Klang or Central Road. Even at a quarter of the size of the mammoth Chinese consumer pit, environmental advisers suggest that traffic won't be affect much by the opening of the new mega-mall, since they have hired at least seven security guards with extra big whistles to deal with the influx of cars.

A 1500 sq meters dedicated to recreational will give shoppers someplace to rest before indulging in their manic need to buy something to verify their existence as human beings on this planet of infinite resources.

Expect opening date April 2009.

I wish them all the luck in the world and suggest they start working on a cable car to carry shoppers from the mega-mall to One Ocean Tower. that would really help beat the traffic.

PS The largest beachfront shopping mall had been in Penang, but it's only 150,000 sq meters so take that Malaysia although the SM Mall in Manila is so big that they had to build an island to fit the parking lots. Way to go PI.

Judging from a spate of operational exercises carried by the Israeli military it seems like the Zionist nation is ready to conduct attacks on its distant enemy, Iran, to prevent the Islamic Republic from challenging Israel's monopoly as a nuclear power. US-made F-16s and F-15s rehearsed a 900-mile round-trip flights over the eastern Mediterranean this last month with Greece sanctioning these numerous territorial incursions. Greece-NATO-USA-GW Bush, who has given the green light for another 900 mile trip, although this time in the direction of Naranz, a major Iranian atomic site.

Hand of God versus the Crazy Mullahs.

A reality made for a TV Movie coming to your screens soon and the Israelis want to strike before the Russians can install low-level radar detectors and advanced SAM missile batteries capable of knocking down the Israeli jets. Even the Pentagon admits that Israel is on the verge of setting off a 3rd World War and embedded White House sources says the president is looking forward to this doomsday scenario since it will surely bring on Armageddon followed by the 2nd Coming of Jesus to bring all good Christians to a heaven on earth.

Ever a hawk, Shaul Mofaz, deputy prime minister of the Zionist democracy was quote in an interview as saying, "We will attack."

That of course is taken out of context.

The full statement is the following. "If Iran continues its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack."

Some more moderate Israeli politicians see these words as a challenge to his embattled PM, however Iran is taking no chances and their air force stopped a Tehran bound flight from Bagdhad, fearing it was an Israeli attack. Pentagon experts have questioned Israeli tactics, saying that bombing so many targets was impractical without taking into consideration that the Israelis are planning on nuking Iran with a number of tactical warheads.

Almost hit, well, almost only counts in horseshoes and nuclear bombs.

All they need is the green light from above.

The Hand of God.

Go Yahweh Go.

Look for an attack close to November so GW Bush can delay the presidential election due to a world security crisis.

Sam Royalle broke up with his girlfriend upon discovering she had been seeing a Thai boyfriend. Actually the Thai boy was her dealer, but her infidelity was more acceptable than a relapse of smoking ja-bah. Sam Threw out his girlfriend and started dating again, which is Pattaya means hitting the go-go bars, drinking, and coming home with a girl or girls whose names you won't remember after you wake up.

He was out last evening searching for a beautiful intelligent bisexual girl at the go-gos, who would love him and liked to swing. Not too much to ask from a girl born in a rice paddy village, since it's well-known that all Thai girls are bisexual and not jealous of sharing their meal ticket with another woman.

Sam ended up with two potential candidates. They went home with him. He had his way with them and then discovered he hadn't any money to pay each of their 1000 baht taxi fares.

Neither girl complained since they knew where he lived and also knew his ex-.

Sam went to sleep and woke in bed alone, ready for a soapy at Sabaii Inn.

Maybe he will be luckier with his search for the beautiful intelligent bisexual there.

18 months after the 9/11 attacks a farmer responded to the $25 million bounty of the supposed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and pointed a finger to where the fugitive was hidden. The informer was cashed up by the CIA and given a new identity as a Thai lady boy and the al-Qaeda killer was captured by a black squad, who transported their prisoner to unknown addresses around the world via Rendition Airlines.

Khalid ended up for a short time in a Thai private prison run by Halliburton. A practiced interrogator visited the Arab in his cell, noting the prisoner seemed a little worse for wear after a month-long session of various torture and discomfort techniques by the agency's "knuckledraggers."

Khalid blathered about Allah, his wife, Israel, hunger, and even Al Qaeda to the 'good cop' interrogator during his breaks from torture by the 'bad cops' He confessed the iner workings of al-Qaeda as well as that he had conjugal relationships with sheep plus had been abducted by aliens and once thought God was a woman. Full disclosure of the meetings are classified, since the GW Bush regime considers everything a secret even when everyone knows the secret.

The Thai black site was south of Bangkok and many Pattaya residents on 3rd Road wonder in that location wasn't the notorious THE CASTLE, the city's premiere S&M site. This bar was next to the Buffalo and I watched the entrances to the sadist club without ever seeing a black helicopter land on the roof, but I also was very drunk at the Buffalo on many occasions, although never drunk enough to go next door for a torture session.

There is a prophetic moment in the movie THE GRADUATE, when Dustin Hoffman is told by his parents' friend, "The future is plastic."

Back in 1967 plastic was used to make toys, radios, and TVs. Food was wrapped in paper. Supermarkets packed your food in paper bags. At the beach most of the flotsam was maritime ropes and maybe ambergris colored broken glass rounded by waves roughing them up on the sand. Not anymore.

Every morning I walk the dog on the private beach in Palm Beach. I pick up soda bottles, potato chip bags, and the very prosaic plastic shopping bag accompany every purchase from a 7/11.

The next morning the highwater mark wears another wreath of discarded trash.

No one else helps with this Sisyphean task and I'm not asking for any help, despite the situation worsening rather than decreasing along the shorelines of the world. why not?

Because like any form of pollution no one sees it as coming from themselves rather than someone else.

"It wasn't me."

No, but it really was.

Certain countries have reacted to the spawn of the oil companies.

South Africa and Bhutan have banned ultra-light plastic bags.

Not America. Not Thailand.

When I tell the 7/11 clerks I don't want a plastic bag, they laugh as if I'm mad.

The herbalist along Pattaya's Pattaya Tai Road tells me people thinks she's cheap or kee-nio if she doesn't bag their purchase. Even if it's a small as a pack of gum.

The solution?

Get rid of everyone on the earth.

I know that's a little severe, but I believe in radical answers to global problems.

Pattaya Ghost

About Me

OPEN CITY declared Peter Nolan Smith an underground punk legend of the 1970s East Village. In the last century the New England native worked as a nightclub doorman at New York’s Hurrah and Milk Bar, Paris’ Les Bains-Douches and Balajo, London’s Cafe de Paris, and Hamburg’s Bsir.

Throughout the 1990s Peter Nolan Smith was employed as a diamond salesman on West 47th Street in the heart of Manhattan’s Diamond District.

The 2000s were spent in Thailand running an internet company and raising his family.

More recently he was appointed the unofficial writer-in-residence to an embassy in Mittel Europa.

The constant traveler has lived for long periods of time in Tibet and the Far East; he is currently based in Fort Greene, New York and Thailand researching the secrets of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as well as putting the final touches on BACK AND FORTH his historical semi-fictional book about hitchhiking across the USA in 1974.

His website www.mangozeen.com covers news and semi fiction from around the globe with over 5000 entries over the past five years written by Peter Nolan Smith.